art history

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  11/13/2021
  

  Discovering the World's Oldest Figurative Paintings

  The Sulawesi pig is estimated to be 10,000 years older than the Lascaux cave drawings and shows that figurative art didn't originate exclusively in Europe. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  10/26/2021
  

  France to Return Looted Artifacts to Benin

  At least 90,000 artifacts from sub-Saharan Africa are held by institutions in France, according to a 2018 report commissioned by the French government.

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• SOURCE: CNN
  9/19/2021
  

  Art History Prof. Recognizes Lost Masterpiece in Local Church

  The painting, "Holy Family with the Infant St. John," is the third of a four-part series by Cesare Dandini and represents a continuation of Renaissance techniques in the Baroque period. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  9/16/2021
  

  The Ongoing Battle over Photographs of the Enslaved at Harvard

  Tamara Lanier has continued to fight Harvard over the ownership of photos of her enslaved ancestors, which were commissioned by the influential race scientist Louis Agassiz.

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• SOURCE: NPR
  9/7/2021
  

  Technology Enables the Exploration of the Work of the First Black American Painter with International Recognition

  "'Conservation never gets old,' says conservator Laura Hartman. There's always an aha! moment.' In this one, when the painting was turned horizontally, x-rays showed another composition underneath. Two draped figures in a landscape."

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• SOURCE: NPR
  7/5/2021
  

  A Story Of War, Theft And A Beautiful Woman, Back In The U.S. After 70+ Years

  Botticelli's portrait of Simonetta Vespucci had a wild ride through World War II, including being stored in a Nazi salt mine. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/12/2021
  

  Opinion: If U.S. Museums Say Black Lives Matter, then they Should Return Africa’s Stolen Art

  "So far, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art have not commented on whether their institutions will return the artifacts that were plundered from the Kingdom of Benin."

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• SOURCE: ArtNet
  5/10/2021
  

  Historians Say the Newark Museum’s Plan to Deaccession Art at Sotheby’s Will Inflict ‘Irreparable Damage’

  More than 60 scholars signed a letter demanding that the museum abandon its plans to sell works from its collection to recoup pandemic losses.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/30/2021
  

  Germany Sets Out Plans to Return Benin Bronzes

  “We are facing the historical and moral responsibility to bring Germany’s colonial past to light and to come to terms with it,” Monika Grütters, Germany’s culture minister, said in a news release.

• 
• SOURCE: CNN
  5/3/2021
  

  The Case for Reparations, In Pictures

  by Karl Kusserow

  A curator looks through the visual depictions of American history to highlight key moments in advocacy for reparations. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/18/2021
  

  The Woman Who Made van Gogh

  Jo Van Gogh-Bonger, the painter's sister-in-law, has come in for reconsideration for her role in promoting his work to the world. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/10/2021
  

  Charles Hill, Detective Who Found ‘The Scream,’ Dies at 73

  Charles Hill of Scotland Yard was without peer in recovering stolen art masterpieces. 

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• SOURCE: BBC
  3/15/2021
  

  France to Return Klimt Painting Sold under Duress during Nazi Era

  French Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot: "Eighty-three years after the forced sale of this painting by Nora Stiasny, this is the accomplishment of an act of justice."

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• SOURCE: WBRZ
  3/2/2021
  

  Rare Winston Churchill Painting Kept in a NOLA Family's Closet for Over 5 Decades Recently Sold for Millions by Angelina Jolie

  Churchill painted the scene the day after the January, 1943 Casablanca Conference meeting with Franklin Roosevelt to strategize for the defeat of Nazi Germany. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/1/2021
  

  Lightning Strikes Twice: Another Lost Jacob Lawrence Surfaces

  A Manhattan nurse learned that a painting in her apartment was the missing Panel 28, "Immigrants admitted from all countries: 1820 to 1840—115,773,” in Jacob Lawrence's "Struggle: From the History of the American People." 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/8/2021
  

  Robert L. Herbert, 91, Dies; Saw Impressionism With a Fresh Eye

  Robert Herbert's studies of impressionism revitalized the field by situating the work of artists in the context of theri social lives. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/26/2021
  

  Cheech Marin’s Chicano Art Museum Is to Open This Fall

  “My motto has always been that you can’t love or hate Chicano art unless you see it in person,” Marin said. “And now people will have a place to always see it.”

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• SOURCE: NPR
  1/2/2021
  

  'Where Are The Women?': Uncovering The Lost Works Of Female Renaissance Artists

  Since 2009, a nonprofit organization called Advancing Women Artists has worked to recover work by female artists and document the history of sexism in the arts. 

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• SOURCE: The Art Newspaper
  12/17/2020
  

  French Senate Blocks Restitution of 27 Artifacts to Benin and Senegal in Dispute with National Assembly

  The bill under consideration would compel France to return artifacts plundered from Benin and Senegal in the 1890s. 

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• 12/13/2020
  

  Anarchism and the Avant-Garde: Félix Fénéon at the Museum of Modern Art

  by Sam Ben-Meir

  A new MOMA exhibition centers not on artists, but on the avant-garde critic and editor Félix Fénéon, whose championing of innovative artists meshed with his radical politics as a critique of the injustices of modern society.